


Revelations

by deifiedrogue



Series: The Nature of Us [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 16-year-old Tonks is hellbent on becoming an Auror, Gen, Identity Issues, Potions, Snape is less than pleased, Teacher-Student Relationship, but how is the clumsiest teenager at Hogwarts going to scrape an Outstanding on her Potions NEWT, just Metamorphmagus things, unfortunately for her only Snape can save her from herself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deifiedrogue/pseuds/deifiedrogue
Summary: Prequel to “Nightwatch.” Sixth year Tonks needs help preparing for her Potions NEWT.
Relationships: Severus Snape & Nymphadora Tonks
Series: The Nature of Us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917682
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Revelations

Biohazard yellow was her hair tonight, glowing violently against the dungeon gloom. _Danger. Stay away._ It said. _Do not touch._

Yes, she was dangerous now. Sneaking into the Potions classroom in the dead of night. She pulled the heavy iron latch up, crisply cold against her sweat-slick hand, and let the door swing inward with a creak. Darkness and the wilting scent of old smoke ushered her in. “ _Lumos_ ,” she whispered, her light thrumming against the damp air. Click!—as the latch fell back into place behind her, sending an invisible centipede crawling up her spine. She swallowed.

 _Danger. Stay away. Danger. Stay away._ She whispered to herself, hair alight. _I’m dangerous_ , she thought. _I’m a fire hazard._ At least, that’s what her housemates told her when they booted her out of the dorm. It only took three noxious, smoking cauldrons before they lost their legendary Hufflepuff patience. “Go poison someone else, please,” they politely appealed.

She scuffed the toe of her boot on the wet stone floor. Damn, but she needed to get this potion right. Wand aloft, she advanced down the rows of desks, her light illuminating the scorch marks of the thousands who came before her. Her cauldron clunked against her thigh with every step, dangling from her fingers by its slightly melted handle.

She stopped at the desk that was sometimes hers, ground her cauldron’s clawed feet into the worn out grooves in the wood. “ _Incendio_ ,” she whispered, and with a wave of her wand and a whoosh, an orange flame crackled up and licked at the belly of the blackened pewter. She smiled a grim smile to herself. _Yes, she was dangerous._

She spun on her heel in the direction of the supply cabinet, her night eyes adjusting to the tricks the new little flame-borne shadows played on her. The door was ajar.

The door was ajar.

“Evening,” said a voice that matched the darkness itself.

As the cold curled round her stomach, she became someone else.

“Professor Snape!” said her new voice, thicker and deeper, as her hair shrunk back in her scalp and muted in color, and her chest squeezed flat. “I was just looking for you, sir! There’s trouble in the commons. It’s Baines, sir, he—”

“Lower,” said the voice in the darkness, as Professor Snape stepped from the black shade of the doorway, illuminating only his silhouette in the flickering light. Her foreign voice caught in her throat. “Further south,” he pressed, each step he took closer revealing more of his face to her, and the one she wore to him. “The accent,” he hissed, the firelight blinding everything but his illuminated mouth, his uneven teeth. “Rosier is from further south than yourself.” A flash of orange in his eyes, swallowed quickly in the black depths. “That is who you are supposed to be, is it not, Miss Tonks?”

Her bright yellow hair sprang forward once again and her chest heaved. _She was dangerous. She was_ . . . dangerous? Her heart thudded in her throat. In a quick bid for mercy, she clasped her hands together and raised them up in repentance.

“Please, sir,” she said, “Just don’t take points from Hufflepuff. We’re _so_ close.”

“Mmm,” his voice resonated, his finger tapping his chin to what seemed the hellish rhythm of the dancing flames. “A mere ten shy, was it?”

“Please, no,” she whispered to the cruel, unhearing darkness.

“Perhaps,” he said, gaining another step on her, “you can explain to me what you’re doing down here, at this hour, in _my_ classroom, and then I can devise a more fitting punishment for you than deducting a few measly points from your House.” He stood no more than an arm’s length from her now, and the trembling flames exposed the full force of his expression. She wished to extinguish them immediately.

“Please, Professor, I’m a fire hazard!” was all she could think to utter.

He blinked. “A fact with which I am intimately acquainted. Its relevance?”

She swallowed. “Well, I was trying to practice my brewing in the Commons—”

“Yet another violation of the rules,” he sneered, but she plowed on in desperation.

“But my housemates, they were all, ‘Don’t catch the curtains on fire, Tonks!’ and ‘You spilled leech juice all over the carpet, Tonks!’ and ‘Stop bloody well setting the curtains on fire, Tonks!’ And there was just no way I was getting anywhere with all their ruckus, so I snuck in here hoping I could finally focus on my potion and—and I just really, _really_ need to pass my Potions NEWT next year, so please, _please_ , sir, let me practice here!”

In the silence that followed, she did nothing but suck air back into her deflated lungs. She dared not look up to see what expression Snape wore now, until his voice at last split the silence.

“Why?” His tone, rather than angry or patronizing, sounded . . . confused?

“Why what, sir?”

“Miss Tonks, I had no idea you possessed the capacity to take anything seriously. Allow me a moment to recover from the shock.”

 _Bastard._ She should have known he’d be winding up for a sarcastic jibe.

“Whether you believe me or not, _Professor_ ,” she bit out, “I’m serious. Dead serious.”

“Oh, is that so?” He folded his arms over themselves, his ghostly hands disappearing into the blackness of his robes. “Well, be that as it may, I cannot—nor _will_ I—allow you to brew potions in my classroom unsupervised.”

“Then supervise me!” she blurted, without a single thought in her phosphorescent head. A cold, heavy stone sank to the pit of her stomach, anchoring her in place. For the duration of only a moment, Snape seemed frozen as well.

“That would be . . .” he began, then stopped short.

As in all tense situations, words flooded the roof of her mouth like vomit. “I mean,” she spluttered, “there’s got to be some time we can practice our brewing! Charms, Transfiguration, even Defence are easy to study outside of class, but Potions? It’s just not fair! There’s only so much practice you can squeeze into class, and then the rest is just . . . reading! I need practical, hands-on experience! I need to make mistakes and keep on making them until I get things right. I’ll learn from them and I’ll improve, you’ll see! All I need is for you to make sure I don’t blow anything up. _Please_ , Professor . . . you’re the only one . . . who can help,” she practically wheezed, hands suddenly grasping her thighs in her bid for oxygen—and, with dawning horror, she realized what she said was true.

She raised her pleading eyes to Snape, who remained quite still. What color were her eyes tonight? She couldn’t remember.

When he spoke, his voice seemed to slither its way to her ears across the cold air. “You will find me in my office between the hours of seven and ten in the evenings. If on a particular school night you wish to . . .”, he paused as if in deep pain, “. . . _attempt_ to brew an advanced potion, I will relocate my work to this classroom—for no more than _one_ hour. Is that understood?”

Her jaw worked up and down, but no words slipped through her teeth this time.

“ _However_ ,” he sneered, “first you will spend an hour here tomorrow evening, in detention, scrubbing cauldrons for breaking into my classroom after curfew.”

She nodded dumbly. “Yes, uh . . . yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I promise I won’t—”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he snapped. “We’ll see how long you last.”

She swallowed.

“Back to bed, _immediately_.” His eyes warned danger, _real_ danger. “If you wander, I shall know.” He strode past her to the door, and she nodded, despite the fact that his back was to her.

He paused with his hand on the heavy door latch. “And Miss Tonks?” He turned back to her. “Do tell me, _why_ is it suddenly so urgent that you pass your Potions NEWT?”

She puffed out her chest, her hair glowing brighter against the gloom. “I want to become an Auror,” she announced.

His lip curled.

“Reconsider.”

And with that, he disappeared into the night, his cloak snapping around the corner of the door.

She made her chest and shoulders expand impressively with no one there to see. She could do it—even clumsy Tonks could do it. She would show him. She would show them all.

**Author's Note:**

> I plan on having a modest chapter for each of Tonks' little supervised brewing sessions with Snape. I hope to not take so long in churning them out as I did starting this prequel, but please be patient with me. :) If there's something you'd like to see play out between them, feel free to drop me a comment and I'll consider throwing it into the mix!


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